Designed in collaboration with UK-based digital artist Elora Owakita, The KapCo’s limited-edition “Night in the Neko City” keyboard accessory set transforms your desk into a vibrant, feline-friendly cityscape with nighttime neon vibes. ⌨️

I’ve always been a sucker for cartoony evening/nighttime art + color schemes, and while this set is a bit more cutesy than what I would normally post about on T&T, I just love how this stuff looks and couldn’t help but share it.

The set includes 121 MX-compatible ASA profile keycaps, an XXL anti-slip deskmat, and a spongy wrist rest, all adorned with Owakita’s distinctive art style that blends whimsical urban nightscapes with adorable cat motifs, granting your deskspace a whole lot more personality.

What’s more, the fact that they’re translucent on four sides allows RGB lighting to shine through, creating a mesmerizing effect that brings the city to life right under your fingertips.

Whether you’re coding late into the night or writing your next novel, the NiTNC set invites you to do it with style, comfort, and a touch of feline charm.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The full NiTNC keyboard bundle — which includes the keycaps themselves and a purple Zuoya LMK67 keyboard with pre-installed Gateron G Pro Yellow 2.0 switches — is $175 at The KapCo, or you can buy the accessories individually to kit out an MX-style keyboard of your own choosing:

• Keycap set ($80)
• Deskmat ($50)
• Wristrest ($30)

If I may also suggest, this pastel purple coiled keyboard cable that I recently wrote about would make a fine addition to the set.

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There’s an illustrator (and budding animator) named Donnie Art who specializes in retro-Japanese and kawaii art styles, and as far as I can tell, they’re arguably best known for their sweet-looking “neon sign” wall art series.

While you can find these prints in various forms online — such as regular framed prints and magnet-mounted metal posters — my vote goes to the brilliant plexiglass wall arts they made in collaboration with V1Tech. They have the vibrant, super glossy look of glass prints, except way more shatter-resistant!

Now, it should be noted that these are not actual neon signs that glow, even if they give the illusion of such. However, true to V1Tech’s origins as makers of PC mod parts, they are 100% backlight-able so you can add that effect yourself if you like. They also sell an RGB LED frame that can add some cool lighting effects to any plexi print they make.

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You can get most of the prints in this series for $80 on Amazon (24″ x 16″ only as of July 2024) or any of the full collection from the V1Tech site directly. (three sizes available).

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Let’s say you’re looking for another marriage of paper and digital, except in this case your preferences lean more towards the latter than the former. Friend, what you seek is the “reMarkable 2” e-ink tablet.

This digital notepad is designed to mimic the feel of writing on paper, making it popular among note-takers, sketch artists, and anyone who prefers the tactile experience of handwriting over typing.

Picture this: you’re in a bustling cafe, sipping on your favorite brew, when inspiration strikes. With the reMarkable 2 in hand, you can effortlessly capture that fleeting idea before it slips away. The device’s textured paper-like display, responsive stylus, and crisp monochrome “ink” technology all offer a writing experience so natural, you’ll forget you’re using a digital device.

Whether you’re jotting down meeting notes, sketching out a new design, or simply doodling to unwind, the reMarkable 2 empowers you to express yourself with ease. It’s also a fantastic way to read ebooks, mark up documents, sign PDF files, and more.

Students, professionals, and creatives alike will appreciate the reMarkable’s refreshing lack of distractions. There are no pop-up ads, no notifications, no social media feeds, no web browsing — just you and your thoughts.

At just 0.19 inches (4.7 mm) thick, the tablet is incredibly easy to take and work on anywhere, and its long battery life means you can go up to two weeks without needing to recharge, ensuring you stay productive no matter where life takes you.

The reMarkable 2 tablet includes a free year of the company’s Connect sync/storage service and is $449 on Amazon. They also offer bundles that include either the polymer Folio sleeve ($549) or leather Book folio ($599).

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If you enjoyed using watercolor paints as a kid, there’s a decent chance you’d love it just as much today if you had some higher-quality supplies to use. I’ve got just the recommendation for you: the Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolor Set, which happens to be a popular choice among beginner and professional artists alike.

This painting set is better than those dollar store versions for a number of reasons:

1. You get a bunch more colors to play with, allowing for greater experimentation and exploration as you discover your unique artistic style.
2. Those pigments are also of much higher quality, consistently delivering vibrant and transparent colors that hold up well over time.
3. Because of how the pigments are formulated, you’ll find them quite smooth and satisfying to paint with, and easy to mix together when needed.

Whether you’re a beginner looking to dip your toes into the world of watercolor painting or an experienced artist seeking quality paints at an affordable price, the Cotman range of watercolor kits has something for everyone. You can buy various sizes of half-pan sets, tube palettes, and even pocket sets for painting on the go.

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Artists and designers, this one’s for you: This color wheel enamel pin is a playful and eye-catching way to personalize your bag, jacket, hat, or anything else you want to display it on. On top of adding a vibrant rainbow of color to your outfit, you can actually spin the smaller wheel to see which hues complement one another!

Measuring 2″ across, this pin is like a miniature art/color theory class you can carry around everywhere. You can also think of it as a fashion fidget spinner for the creative at heart. ✨

Get it for $10 on Amazon. Even if it’s not for you, I bet you know someone it would make a nice little gift for.

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Tom and Dan of Studio Neat have spent the last 12 months working on a new product that distills all the things they’ve learned about making notebooks these past several years, including their soft-cover Totebook and panoramic-layout Panobook.

Their latest offering is called Keepbook, and this time it’s a classic-style hardcover journal intended for long-term archival once you’ve finished filling its 160 pages. To that end, they include a blank rigid slipcase with spaces on the spine where you can fill out the start and end dates for that notebook, along with any little notes you want to say about it.

As you complete more and more of them, your shelf starts to become an exhibition of your past thoughts, doodles, memories, and whatever else you may want to look back on someday.

Keepbook lays completely flat when opened, and every page is a treat to write/sketch on thanks to its thick and toothy 240 gsm weight, which in its way is akin to high-quality photo stock.

You can even use watercolors on these pages without bleedthrough.

Even the built-in bookmark looks and feels wonderful to use, thanks to its soft woven twill construction and dark green color.

Keepbook comes in your choice of blank, ruled (7mm), or dot-grid (5mm) pages, each of which is $25 at Studio Neat.

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The folks from the Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell YouTube channel are back again with another “Human Era” calendar for the year 2024 — or should I say 12,024 H.E.?

That’s right, they’re continuing their annual tradition of adding 10,000 years to the existing calendar in order to honor the era when humans as a whole (with no bias for any particular nation or culture culture) truly began working together at large scale and laying the foundation for civilization as we know it today.

Every new edition of the Human Era calendar has a unique theme, and this year’s focuses on the various ways life might develop in other parts of the universe:

This year’s calendar is extra special. Join us as we conduct a series of space experiments to see how they would affect the development of life. What would a creature living near an orange dwarf look like? Could life still exist after a supernova explosion? How might a close-by quasar help foster life? Could creatures thrive on a planet with two suns? Let’s find out together.

In addition to the fascinating subject matter, the construction of the calendar is top-notch as always, featuring high-quality paper, sturdy binding, bright illustrations with bold colors, and a shiny and vibrant foil cover.

Get the 12,024 H.E. calendar for $27 at the Kurzgesagt shop.

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The folks at Field Notes have always had a penchant for 20th century Americana, and that adoration is on full display with their latest limited edition, “Heartland,” which goes back to their roots by paying tribute to American farm life:

For this edition they asked artist/screenprinter Dan McCarthy to illustrate a triptych of covers that, when aligned, become a panoramic image depicting a Midwestern farm landscape over the course of a day:

Man, what a vibe, so pretty. Here are some of other tidbits about this edition in their own words:

The pocket-size books feature McCarthy’s artwork printed on sturdy 100# Domtar Cougar cover stock. The body of the book is Finch Opaque 60# text with a “Big Sky”-blue 3/16″ grid. Each book features a unique set of “Practical Applications” based on the daypart illustrated on the cover. You’ll find these books indispensable whenever you take a moment from your busy day to catch your breath and collect your thoughts — on the farm or wherever else you may happen to be.

Get a 3-pack of the “Heartland” Edition for $15 at Field Notes. You can also buy a print of the triptych cover artwork for $35.

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Earlier this month, ZAGG released their new Pro Stylus 2, an update to the original Pro Stylus that’s designed to work with all iPads 2018 and newer. It’s a dual-ended stylus that has an active fine tip on one end (for sketching and precisely marking up documents) and a rounded universal-capacitive tip (for scrolling/swiping pages) on the other.

Much like an analog clicky pen, that rounded backend tip is what you press to power on the Pro Stylus 2, and the device turns itself off after 15 minutes of inactivity. The stylus offers up to 6.5 hours of use before needing a recharge, which can be done either with the included charging cradle or by placing it on a Qi wireless charger.

When not in use, it attaches magnetically to the iPad Pro (11″ or 12.9″) just like an Apple Pencil.

While it doesn’t offer pressure sensitivity as a feature, it does have tilt recognition and palm-rejection technology, so for most doodlers and note-takers, it should do the job just fine.

The Zagg Pro Stylus 2 comes in your choice of dark gray, blue, white, pink, or yellow.

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If there’s anyone alive whose brain I would love to pick about the creative process, it’s Rick Rubin. He’s not only the legendary and award-winning music “superproducer” behind some of the biggest albums of all time, he’s also a philosopher of creativity who has spent decades thinking about, practicing, and guiding others in the making of art rather than simply product.

Earlier this year he released a book called The Creative Act that takes a bunch of that creative wisdom out of his head and distills it on the page for the rest of us to learn from and be inspired by.

From the book description:

Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities.

The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments—and lifetimes—of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.

Whatever your preferred art form/medium — or if you currently lack one and are thinking of taking up a new hobby or even profession — reading this book is like entering a dojo of creativity where you not only learn how to get better at your craft, but also come away feeling more in tune with your own humanity.

Get the book in these formats:

• Kindle ($17)
• Apple Books ($17)
• Hardcover ($20)
• Spiral-bound ($33)
• Audible audiobook ($28)

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I’m sure I don’t need to explain the functionality of these zipper pouch trios from LOQI. They carry your daily essentials, whether it’s stationery, art supplies, toiletries and/or cosmetics, travel documents, socks and undies in your suitcase, device accessories, or whatever else. Pretty simple.

The reasons I’m linking them are two-fold:

1. They’re made from 100% recycled, water-resistant polyester taffeta — which is certified to both GreenCircle and “STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX” standards — and created with waterless printing methods, which shows the company’s commitment to sustainable products without the use of harmful chemicals.
2. They come in a bunch of cool art styles, some of which are reproduced from the works of past and present artists like Kristjana S Williams (pictured below), Keith Haring, Alex Trochut, Jean Michel Basquiat (pictured above), Louise Bourgeois, Shinpei Naito, Stephen Cheetham, the Barcelona-based Hey creative studio, and Vincent van Gogh.

Whatever you need to carry around with you in your life, you’ll find that these sets of small, medium, and large zip bags are infinitely useful and definitely more stylish than most options you’ll find.

Most of these pouch trios will run you $20 on Amazon. If the particular search term at that link doesn’t show you enough options, try looking under “loqi zip pouches” and you should see more.

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It seems that cartoony jigsaw puzzles ~with a twist~ are all the rage these days. The most popular examples I know of are those ✨magical ending✨ puzzles by the Magic Puzzle Company, followed by the similar-looking Odd Pieces puzzles that you may have seen ads for on YouTube and elsewhere lately, each of which give you a fun little mystery to solve.

The fact that the Magic Puzzle Company released a Series Two trio of puzzles at the beginning of 2022 somehow slipped under my radar, and then it happened again when Series Three came out at the beginning of this year. Well, I may be late to the party, but better than never, as they say…right?

“The Secret Soup”

The Series Three collection includes these three custom-illustrated puzzles:

1. “The Secret Soup” — Illustrated by Margaux Peltat
2. “The Puzzled Patron” — Illustrated by Taylor Rose
3. “The Gnomes’ Homes” — Illustrated by Ninn Salaün

“The Puzzled Patron”

Like the original set, these puzzles are full of tiny whimsical details and easter eggs for you to discover and enjoy as they’re being assembled, and each one does a “magic trick” when you finish it.

No, it doesn’t like, sprout wings and fly around or anything like that — these are merely cardboard jigsaw puzzles, after all. But there is something of a surprise awaiting you at the end of each one, and you’ll need to solve it for yourself if you want to find out what it is.

Think of it like a “bonus level”

The puzzles can be purchased for $23 a pop, or you can buy all three in a bundle for $60.

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In case it slipped your radar until now, last year Amazon released a new member of the Kindle family — it’s called the Kindle Scribe, and it’s not only an e-reader with a 300 ppi glare-free Paperwhite display, but also a digital notebook/journal/sketchbook/productivity device that lets you use the included stylus to write and draw on the screen.

With the Scribe you can take notes, create to-do lists, highlight and annotate your favorite books as you read, sketch and doodle to your heart’s content, keep a handwritten journal, sign invoices and mark up PDFs, do crossword puzzles, and more.

You can work with different digital writing utensils (pen, fountain pen, marker, or pencil — each with different nib widths) and there are options for customizing the font size, theme, and layout of your notes.

The notes can be organized into notebooks on the device, which themselves can be placed into folders and/or subfolders to keep your inner organization nerd happy. Pages within those notebooks can use one of 18 different templates, including blank paper, lined paper, checklists, graph paper, calendars, various charts, etc.

One of the cool things about your notes is that they can be converted to text and sent to your contacts for use in documents or presentations, which is awesome for keeping meeting notes organized, facilitating book club discussions, sending illustrated love notes to someone special, sharing task and grocery lists, and much more.

The Kindle Scribe comes with your choice of a Basic Pen or Premium Pen stylus, the difference being that the Premium one has an ‘eraser’ on top, along with a shortcut button on the side that you press and hold to activate an assigned function (highlighting, creating sticky notes, switching between different pen brushes, and so on).

If the Scribe seems like exactly the kind of device you need in your life, I’d recommend picking up the 64 GB model with a Premium Pen, which is $420 on Amazon. However, you can go as low as $340 for the 16 GB model with Basic Pen. There are also bundles that include things like a magnetic Fabric Folio Cover or Leather Folio Cover.

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Knitting can be a very relaxing and stress-relieving activity, especially for those of us with fidgety hands and an anxious mind, but keeping that darn (ha!) ball of yarn under control is a bit less so. However, there’s a clever little tool called a yarn bowl that takes care of that pesky issue.

You simply place the yarn in the bowl, run the working end through the spiral cutout on the side, and Bob’s your uncle — the yarn ball stops bouncing and rolling all over the place as you knit, which has the added benefit of it not collecting dust, pet hair, or whatever else is laying around. It also makes moving your project around from room to room a bit easier.

The attractive Indian rosewood yarn bowl you see pictured above is $27 on Amazon. They also have other colors and form factors to choose from, including a two-tone rosewood + mango wood bowl ($27), a glossy dark mango wood bowl ($27), a black resin bowl ($36), and a lighter-colored maplewood bowl (sold out as of May 25th, 2023 but expected to return in mid-June).

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To this day, Steve McDonald’s Fantastic Cities (2015) remains one of our favorite coloring books for grown-ups. Now he’s teamed up with the team at Field Notes to produce their latest quarterly limited edition: “Streetscapes”.

Essentially, what they came up with were a handful of carry-everywhere sketchbooks with “coloring book”-style covers, featuring the artist’s intricate black-and-white architectural illustrations wrapped around the front and back.

You can leave them as-is of course, but the real magic comes from being able to totally personalize them in any number of ways. Scroll through some of the artist’s own interpretations for some ideas:

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The sketch books measure 4¾” x 7½” and contain 48 plain pages of premium white paper, and they come in two-packs with your choice of Los Angeles + Chicago -or- New York City + Miami covers.

Get a 2-pack of the “Streetscapes” Edition for $15 at Field Notes. Make sure to get yourself a nice pack of colored pencils while you’re at it!

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